c. 2008 Religion News Service
Hudson rebuffs calls to resign from McCain campaign
WASHINGTON (RNS) Four years after he was forced to step down from President Bush’s re-election campaign, Catholic scholar Deal Hudson is facing calls to resign as an adviser to Sen. John McCain’s campaign.
Catholics United, and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said Hudson should resign from the Catholics for McCain National Steering Committee because of a 1994 sexual harassment claim filed by a college student.
“Unlike the Bush campaign in 2004, Sen. John McCain seems to believe that Hudson’s political value outweighs any of his past indiscretions,” said Chris Korzen, executive director of the progressive Catholics United.
In response, Hudson said that he has “no formal relationship” with the campaign and is an unpaid volunteer adviser.
“I think my past sin _ as admittedly shameful as it was _ should not prevent me from voicing my political opinions,” said Hudson in a statement Thursday (July 17).
Hudson was forced to resign as an adviser to Bush’s 2004 campaign after a 1994 sexual harassment claim filed by an 18-year-old female student at Fordham University resurfaced. Hudson, who left his post at Fordham a year after the incident, settled with the student for $30,000.
Hudson called the incident “a source of shame.”
“Over the past four years, I’ve tried to make amends with family, friends and supporters,” he said in the statement. “People close to me say I’m a different person now, and I’d like to think that’s true.”
The group also criticized Hudson, who currently serves as the director of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture and editor of InsideCatholic.com, for his association with Karl Rove, and for his opposition to the Vatican on global warming.
“It’s time to end the politics of division embodied by the likes of Deal Hudson, and to protect the Catholic faith from being manipulated to serve a narrow partisan agenda,” Korzen said.
Hudson, one of more than 100 members on the Catholics for McCain Steering Committee, has been a critic of Sen. Barack Obama’s views on abortion during the campaign. On his blog, Hudson recently called the November election “the ultimate, civilizational, challenge for our country.“
Echoing Catholics United’s charge, SNAP held a protest outside the Republican National Committee’s Washington headquarters Thursday.
_ Tim Murphy
Church postpones youth gun giveaway
OKLAHOMA CITY (RNS) A Baptist church here has canceled plans for a gun giveaway at its annual youth conference, but said the contest will resume next year despite criticisms and “false statements” in local media outlets.
Windsor Hills Baptist Church canceled the gun giveaway and a shooting competition after a local television station announced that an AR-15 assault rifle would be given away as part of the shooting contest.
In a statement released on the church’s Web site, youth pastor Bob Ross said the giveaway was canceled because Pastor Emeritus Jim Vineyard had injured his foot and would be unable to attend the event. Ross said the gun would be given away at next year’s conference.
A video on the youth conference Web site shows clips of young people firing automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles at last year’s conference. The shooting competition, using water-filled, plastic milk cartons as targets, is an annual event. A gun was given away at last year’s event as well.
The church also released a statement saying that a shotgun had been donated, not purchased, so that the competition could continue.
“If Congress, back when our country was fighting for its independence, could give engraved muskets to the 15 or so 11-year-old boys that their teacher, Mr. Akins, led into battle against the British, then we can give away a firearm still today, especially since our Supreme Court just re-emphasized our Second Amendment rights,” the church statement said.
Ross told the local ABC affiliate that the gun giveaway is a marketing strategy to attract young people to the camp.
“I don’t want people thinking, `My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,”’ said Ross. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”
The ABC station initially reported that the church had paid $800 for the rifle, and that the station’s story had prevented the church from giving the weapon away. A spokesperson for the church denied both claims.
_ Greg Horton
Birmingham airport renamed for civil rights pastor
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The Birmingham Airport Authority voted unanimously Wednesday (July 16) to rename Alabama’s largest airport for civil rights leader the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.
“I’m thankful,” said Shuttlesworth, sitting in a wheelchair at his downtown apartment. “That’s good. Exciting days.”
The new name will be the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, authority board members said. But they said it will probably be months before travelers begin to see evidence of the new name.
“I think it is incredible,” said Shuttlesworth’s wife, Sephira. “We tip our hat to Birmingham for stepping up to the plate. It is time. He’s an extraordinary man and he deserves extraordinary credit. I’m happy it’s happening at a time he can see it and recognize it.”
Shuttlesworth, now 86, grew up in Birmingham and was pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville from 1953 to 1961. During that time he led sit-ins on segregated buses and was beaten by a mob while trying to integrate a city high school. His church and home were bombed by the Ku Klux Klan.
He later was pastor of two churches in Cincinnati, but returned to Alabama frequently to lead marches that helped bring an end to legalized segregation.
In 1963, he and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led marches in downtown Birmingham that resulted in King being jailed and Shuttlesworth being knocked down by a fire hose and hospitalized.
The marches and the bombing later that year of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where four girls were killed, provided impetus for the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
“What they did was not just for black people,” Mayor Larry Langford said. “Birmingham changed the conscience of the world.”
_ Greg Garrison
Quote of the Day: Joseph Zwilling of the Archdiocese of New York
(RNS) “If someone who listens to Howard Stern happens to turn to the Catholic Channel one day and doesn’t realize for a couple of minutes that what he’s listening to is the Catholic Channel, well, I’m not going to be upset about that. We recognize that Catholics are listening to Howard Stern. What we want people to know is that they can talk about all the same things he does, but in a Catholic context.”
_ Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and general manager of the Catholic Channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. He was quoted by The New York Times.
KRE/PH END RNS
